Finding Frankie: Search continues for dog who escaped Rover pet sitter’s home in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - A Las Vegas family is desperate to bring their beloved dog home. They left him with a dog sitter they found through a popular pet sitting platform before leaving town and now they have no idea where he is.

You may see flyers up near Volunteer and South Las Vegas Boulevard. It’s an area south of the M Resort where the dog went missing.

“We love Frankie, and we want him back,” said his owner Ray Brown.

Frankie, a 65-pound goldendoodle, is more than just a dog to his owners.

“He is soft, fluffy, friendly, loves to cuddle… He is the perfect family member,” Brown added.

Ray and Sharon Brown went out of town for a wedding and found a sitter through the pet sitting platform Rover. The pet sitter reported Frankie escaped on Saturday, but the family was not notified until Sunday.

“At that very time we were being notified, we were boarding a flight. We put it on social media. We had friends, family, strangers searching for him before we even got here,” explained Sharon Brown.

Three days later, family and volunteers continue to search the desert near where the dog reportedly went missing. They are now is offering a $2,000 reward to anyone who may have or finds him. He is microchipped with updated information.

Danielle Andrade spoke to FOX5′s sister station in Atlanta one year ago after her dog Lucky escaped while being watched by a pet sitter she found through Rover. Andrade found her dog dead, run over in the street. Andrade created this online petition now with more than 15,000 signatures demanding dog sitting services do more than just criminal background checks including a virtual home check and mandatory training on what to do if a dog were to escape.

“We went on and did our due diligence, looked at all the reviews, looked at the area, everything looked great. He had 5-star reviews,” shared Ray Brown. The Browns also say more needs to be done to protect pets, but for now their main priority is finding Frankie.

Rover sent FOX5 the following statement:

As pet parents ourselves, our hearts go out to Frank’s family and we join them in hoping for his swift return home. Our 24/7 Trust and Safety team immediately began supporting the search as soon as we were notified that he was missing. Rover has paid for flyers, is sponsoring a $500 reward, and our team has posted in online pet-finding forums that send alerts to local shelters and veterinarians. We continue to stay in regular contact with his family and have issued them a complete refund.

We remain committed to helping Frank be safely reunited with his family. Our team is conducting a thorough investigation, and the sitter involved has been suspended while the search continues.

We require every sitter on our platform to pass a criminal background check provided by an industry-leading third party. Additionally, they must pass a safety quiz and their profile is manually reviewed by our team before they are able to list their services.

Safety is at the heart of what we do, and an experience like this is very rare on the Rover platform. More than 136,000 stays have been booked in the Las Vegas area, with 97% of reviewed stays receiving 5 stars.

Copyright 2022 KVVU. All rights reserved.